"The Democracy does things like that all the time."
"Then it's time to stop them."
"Maybe it is," agreed Bailey reluctantly. "But I'm not the one to do it."
"You've got all the attributes."
"You don't even know what his attributes were," said Bailey. "And neither do I. No one does."
"Someone has to stand up to the Democracy!"
"And have them do to Devonia what they did to New Tangier IV?" snapped Bailey irritably. "How do you stand up to a force like that?"
"He found a way. You will, too."
"Not me, Rhymer. I'm no revolutionary, and I'm no leader of men."
"You could be."
"I've done my time in the trenches. You'd better listen to the Injun and get the hell out of here, because if it comes to a choice between fighting the Navy or telling them where you've gone, I'll be the fastest talker you ever saw."
Dante stared at him, as if seeing him for the first time. "You mean it, don't you?"
"You bet your ass I mean it. You may have a death wish; I don't."
Dante blinked his eyes rapidly for a moment, as if disoriented. Then he sat erect. "I'm sorry. I was mistaken. You're not the one."
"I've been telling you that."
"But I'll find him."
"If he exists."
"If the times call exceptional men forth, they're practically screaming his name. He exists, all right—or he will, once I find him and convince him of his destiny."
"I wish you luck, Rhymer."
"You do?" said Dante, surprised.
"I live here. I know we need him." Bailey paused. "Are you going to keep my four verses?"
"Yes."
"Even that last one?"
"Even the last one," replied Dante. "It's not your fault you're not Santiago."
"Okay," said Bailey. "You played square with me. Maybe I can do you a favor."
"We're even," said Dante. "You killed Bennett, I gave you four verses."
Bailey shook his head. "A couple of hours from now the Navy is going to show up and ask me what I know about you, and I'm going to tell them. So I owe you another favor."
"All right."
"If you want to find a new Santiago, you'd better learn everything you can about the old one."
"I know everything Orpheus knew."
"Orpheus was a wandering poet who may never even have seen Santiago," said Bailey dismissively. "If you really want to know what there is to know about Santiago, there's a person you need to talk to."
"What's his name and where can I find him?"
"He's a she, and all I know is the name she's using these days—Waltzin' Matilda. She's used a lot of other names in the past."
"Waltzin' Matilda," repeated Dante. "She sounds like a dancer."
Bailey smiled. "She's a lot more than a dancer."
"Where is she?"
"Beats me. She moves around a lot."
"That's all I have to go on—just a name?"
"That's better than you had two minutes ago," said Bailey. Suddenly he looked amused. "Or did someone tell you that defeating the Democracy was going to be easy?"
The giant's laughter was still ringing in Dante's ears as he and Virgil left the casino and hurried to their ship.
Part 2: WALTZIN’ MATILDA'S BOOK
8.
Matilda waltzes, and she grinds.
Matilda gets inside men's minds.
Matilda plunders and she robs;
Matilda's pulled a thousand jobs.
It was an exaggeration. At the time Dante found her, Matilda had pulled only 516 jobs, which was still sufficient to make her one of the most wanted criminals on the Frontier.
Her specialty was that she didn't specialize. Gold, diamonds, artwork, fissionable materials, promissory notes, she stole them all. She'd done two years in the hellhole prison on Spica II, and another four months on Sugarcane. She escaped from both, the only prisoner ever to break out of either penitentiary.
She was a lot of things Dante wasn't—skilled in the martial arts, skilled in the ways of haute couture society, exceptionally well-read—and a few things that Dante was, such as an outlaw with a price on her head. It didn't bother her much; she figured that if she could survive Spica II, she could survive anything the Democracy or the Frontier threw at her.
The most interesting aspect of her past was that she came from money, and had every whim catered to. At eight she was so graceful a ballerina that her family mapped out her entire future—and at nine she proved to be even more independent than graceful by leaving the Democracy forever. She stowed away on a cargo ship bound for Roosevelt III, somehow made her way to the carnival world of Calliope, bought a fake ID with money she'd stolen from her brother, and soon found work dancing in various stage shows.
As she grew older she learned every dance from a tango to a striptease, and made her way from one world to another as an entertainer, dancing solo when possible, with partners when necessary. She changed her name as often as most people changed clothes, and changed her worlds almost as frequently—but she never left a world without some trinket, some banknote, some negotiable bond, something, that she hadn't possessed when she arrived.
Just once she made the error of stealing within the Democracy's borders. That was when she was apprehended and incarcerated on Spica II. She never went back again.
No one knew her real name. She liked the sound of Matilda, and used it with half a hundred different surnames. She was Waltzin' Matilda just once, on Sugarcane, but that was where she was arrested the second time, and after she escaped from jail, that was the name that was on all the Wanted posters.
She still used a different name, sometimes more than one, on every world, but she was resigned to the fact that to most of her friends and almost all of her enemies she had become Waltzin' Matilda, despite the fact that she could not recall ever having performed a single waltz on stage.
It was a pleasant life, punctuated only by the occasional narrow escape from the mignons of the Democracy or those bounty hunters who wished to claim its reward. She liked appearing on stage, and she found her secret vocation as a thief sexually exciting, especially when she knew that her movements were being watched.
Like tonight.
Dimitrios of the Three Burners was in the audience. He hadn't come to Prateep IV to find her—he was after other prey—but he had a notion that Matilda Montez was really Waltzin' Matilda, and since he hadn't turned up his quarry yet, he'd dropped in to check her out, maybe keep an eye on her in case she was up to her usual tricks.
She watched him out of the corner of her eye as she spun and dipped, jumped and pirouetted. It was Dimitrios, all right, with his trademarked burners in two well-worn holsters and the handle of the third peeking out from the top of his boot. He seemed relaxed, sipping his drink, staring at her with the same appreciative smile she'd seen on so many other men in so many other audiences. Well, you just keep drinking and smiling, bounty killer, because before you leave here I'm going to be two million credits richer—and even you, who's seen it all and heard it all, won't believe the only eyewitness.